In 2016, Richard Timmins went to a free informational seminar to learn more about Medicare coverage.

“I listened to the insurance agent, and basically, he really promoted Medicare Advantage,” Timmins says. The agent described less expensive and broader coverage offered by the plans, which are funded largely by the government but administered by private insurance companies.

For Timmins, who is now 76, it made economic sense then to sign up. And his decision was great, for a while.

Then, three years ago, he noticed a lesion on his right earlobe.

“I have a family history of melanoma. And so, I was kind of tuned in to that and thinking about that,” Timmins says of the growth, which doctors later diagnosed as malignant melanoma. “It started to grow and started to become rather painful.”

Timmins, though, discovered that his enrollment in a Premera Blue Cross Medicare Advantage plan would mean a limited network of doctors and the potential need […]